There is no relevant title for this post since my brain is a little too fried to even come up with one. We're on day 5 of having two sick boys (JJ and Ben both have colds), and if you know me you know I'm not really used to being cooped up in my house for more than a day. So to be on the 4th day of cabin fever is really testing me. I literally cried out to God this morning to rescue me. Or at least fill me with the compassion and patience I am so desperately lacking. All that aside....
I caught a few brief moments this morning to meditate once again on this Advent season and to pray as well. I would like to interject here that something I feel is a continual work in progress for me is LISTENING as much as doing the talking. That's a real challenge for me. To get quiet enough to really sense what the Lord wants to say to me.
This morning's reading dealt with Santa's role in this whole Christmas season. Odd, I know. James and I did not grow up "celebrating" Santa, and our children aren't either. We don't really have anything against the guy, we just prefer to focus all of our energies on the true Reason for the Season, Jesus Christ. The author of my devotional made a good point that an important element of the incarnation of Christ into man was to redeem the secular. There is nothing on earth so profane that God cannot redeem it. He also referenced his own childhood and Santa's role in it, how this man was presented to him by his parents as one who was so filled with joy and love about the Savior's birth that he would go all around the world for the sole purpose of giving to others. And throughout his younger years Santa never clashed with his worship of Christ. It was almost an extension of it. Anyway, all this to say that the Claus was presented to me in a whole new light this morning, and I was also convicted by that statement that the incarnation was meant to redeem the secular. Truly, we have been created to be in the world but not of it, spreading the good news of our greatest Gift.